Shaky Sight
by drewbug
Summary: A companion piece to my story "Quake in Sunnyland," from Drusilla's POV. Read the other first, or this won't make sense.


**Shaky Sight**

**by Nicole Clevenger (c) February 20001**

** **

He has come back again, returned to his place inside my head. He fits there, belonging. Warm. Filling the empty spaces inside me and quieting all the noise...

There is something wrong. I can smell it on him. He is not well, not all here with me. "We've missed you so, lovie," my heart sings to him. "We've all been so lonely without you." Around me, all the pretty dollies nod in agreement. Without him, we get so very bored sometimes. Until the butterfies' wings whisper some delicious darkness to us, and we go out to play. But never like we played with our Daddy. He always knew the most wicked games.

"Daddy's home now, Pet. You don't have to be lonely anymore."

I can feel his arm around me, holding me close like it used to be, before. He smells of age and death, and the sweetness of sickness. I want to make him better... 

I tell him about our travels, the things we've seen. The pictures dance in my head, flickering in and out of focus like a match flame in the darkness. We wandered the world for some time, my dollies and I, with no idea of where our path should end. We went where we wished, following the directions of the wind. The wind scented our sights, teasing them along on an endless string. Smelled like flowers, it did. Like the dead.

Trafalgar comes into my mind, looming up over all the little thoughts to cover everything like a blanket. I try to send the picture to him, through my thoughts. The snow falls thick around my boots, but I don't get cold anymore. We chase her for blocks through that deep snow. She doesn't scream until the very end, that one. Just moves faster and faster, trying to get away from the hunters who are after her blood. Blood that spotted the white ground like rose petels.

So pretty, that color. Deep folds of silky red, spreading across the frozen layer of water that hides the world beneath. Her hair is the same color as mine, and I hold her and brush it with my fingers. She trembles so! Such a little bird, shivering under my fingertips.

I can feel your heartbeat, little bird.

My love doesn't have a heartbeat. It has been long since we felt such a thing, alive and pulsing in our breasts. He quakes like the birdie, though, here in my arms. He is too warm for the snow -- it melts and flows from us in its watery form, disappearing into the ground again.

His warmth grows, until he begins to sear my hands with his heat. He is fire, consuming me. An angry, hateful fire, swallowing me in its frightening flames. He hurt me. He left me alone, crying in the darkness. Burning. The crackling whispers tell me that I was a bad girl, that he has left me to punish, to harm. 

They are laughing, some of them. Miss Charlotte scolds me so. Miss Annabelle sings and sings, her notes tangling my thoughts and dirtying my ears. They all blame me for the fire. Their voices never stop, not when they truly wish to make themselves heard. 

And then, blackness.

~~~

Those girls are there, with him in the room. I can see them through his eyes. The one looks familiar, a breath of a name that I've long since forgot, if ever I knew. The other is new, but he doesn't see her clearly. She is out of his sight, nothing more substantial than a blur. In his thoughts as well. The titian-haired one holds a fond place in his mind, which surprises me a teensy bit. My Spikey has made friends with the humans? How silly of him. 

~~~

He's dreaming again, back in my head. The beautiful old vase had been telling me its story, but it fell to the floor and broke into a million tiny pieces. Too tiny to ever be whole once more. It was quite a sad story, and I wished I had heard the end before its voice was silenced.

But I am with him again, with him in his nightmare place. He is running, trying to find his way through the greenery. The jungle smells like crawly things and fresh life, scurrying and hurrying away from my handsome invader. They will do well to avoid him. He is a killer, after all, and he hungers for death.

He is chasing someone up ahead -- someone he has lost. A tease of red from the leaves, then gone. The moonlight casts the strangest shadows. Things become other than that which they seem during the day. Or so I remember. It has been so very long. But sometimes, in my dreams, I walk in the sun again. It does not burn me, and I do not argue with it. We are friends. But only in my dreams. 

The sun is my enemy. Our war will never end.

There is laughter in the air, in the trees. Music, to my love. He searches for the laughter, desperate energy as he strives to find the source. It is music in a key that I know, though I can not now see the singer. He will find her though. I am certain because he is certain.

Then the ground shakes like a giant's fist, and the known girl falls on top of his ailing body. She pins him to the jungle floor, unable at first to recover her balance. The other reaches for her, pulls her to her feet, and I can see the energy between them. Pretty pretty greens and yellows, reds and whites, all mixed together in a stunning rainbow of light between their hands. These two belong to one another, I see. Two pieces of a whole.

Then he is standing again, my Daddy, and the leaves have filled the world. The girls are gone now, though I can still feel them there, on the edges. Their voices are almost able to be heard in all the silence around us. I feel him stop, realizing that all the creatures have stopped talking. They no longer have anything to say, it seems. I spin, invisible and noncorpreal, swallowing all of the silence in my dress and my hair. It enters me, taking over for a long moment. Only silence. Peace.

But it can not last for long, my little game. All too soon I am pulled into him, into his feverish dream skin. He is frightened, I see. The peace does not me the same to him as it does to me. I welcome the calm. He feels it as loneliness.

The crying begins. It howls around us, the pain of a soul. A lost soul. But I realize, as he does, my mistake. It is I who is crying, a mirror friend image of myself. I watch, fascinated by the streaks of red that paint my cheeks. My friend is unhappy, but not souled. No, it sprouted cloud wings and flew away long ago. 

My friend is beautiful. This is how he sees me, how he pictures his Princess in his thoughts. I have not seen myself for so long. Is this how I appear? How lovely... I move toward her, the poor sad girl, and reach my hand toward her. I want to touch her, to see what her skin feels like. To see if I will be able to feel it myself, inside this real-me. 

My love is struggling, I hear. I turn away from my mirror self and face him. Two spectacular snakes have slithered along and caught him in their grasps. Quick, quick, slithering along. They are red, like the dress my double wears. Like blood. Like life.

Hiss...

Quick mean snakes: they bite him. Fangs into flesh, except this flesh is dead, bloodless. He has his true face out now, struggling against the slippy creatures. He screams, tearing through the darkness of the leafy surroundings. I can see the pain on his face, in his body. I can smell it. He burns, like the fire, yet he still tries to reach his Princess. She is the only thing that cuts its way through the agony, and he holds to her tightly, reaching with his thoughts when his arms can not. He hurts, he burns.

I delight in it. And I suffer with him.

The Prince touches the Princess, resting his gentle hand on her sobbing head. Her face turns up to him, and it is as if a torch is lit in the night. His hurt eases at her smile. She is what he has been looking for.

She leaps to her feet, no longer unhappy. Taking his hands, she pulls him 'roundand 'round, dancing a dance of joy. The birds sing again. The moon is glad at the sight. I dance with them, dizzy with the pleasure. We are giggling, our thoughts spirals of golden light. 

~~~

He is fading now, his energy so faint that I can hardly hear him. I fear that he might not last through this sickness. I do not wipe away the tears that threaten to spill down my invisible face. I can not help him anymore. The girl who has been tending him is kind, and I wonder again how this came to be. She is receptive to outside influences, but I do not allow her to recognize my presence beyond the subconscious. There is great power in this one. She would be interesting to watch, to see where she will go. I hear a murmur about her importance, a hint at a role she will come to play. 

I do not wish to listen to them. I wish to be with my love. She is gentle with him, caring. A small push encourages her to continue. After everything, he is leaving me. The final step to forever. What will the world be like, if I can not taste him in my memories? If I can not reach for him in the darkness, when the missing is at its most painful? He has been there since almost the start of it all, my brother love. My Daddy. 

The words come, drifting through the waves of my mind. He will continue on, they hiss in sprays of sea foam. He is not over yet. Your paths shall cross again.

Delight hums through my cells, vibrating my body. 

I leave him to his rest.

end


End file.
